Wal-Mart's shady labor practices get an Idaho face

[IDemo]

Revenge of the One-Minute Clock-Out

OCTOBER 12, 2005

BY RYAN PECK

Wal-Mart is a corporate colossus. The statistics are staggering: It employs 10 percent of the nation's workforce--around 1.5 million employees, and 6,400 in Idaho--and with annual sales of over $256 billion, it produces over 2 percent of the national gross domestic product. Excluding automobiles, Wal-Mart accounts for 8 percent of American retail sales. The slogan of "everyday low prices," is truly a siren's call to our nation's shoppers.

One of the ways Wal-Mart maintains these low prices is through a fierce minimization of costs. Frequently, this comes at the expense of Wal-Mart employees. The company has been unwavering in its stance against unions, and is notoriously crafty how it provides--or fails to provide--employee benefits. As a third chapter to this marginalization of the nation's working poor, Wal-Mart is being accused of not even paying its employees accurately.

In 2000, Wal-Mart settled a $50 million Colorado class action lawsuit, which claimed 69,000 employees were not accurately compensated for their hourly work. This is not an isolated accusation. In 2004, the New York Times quoted Wal-Mart managers stating they had deliberately altered workers' hours through manipulation of electronic timekeeping records--frequently to prevent workers from acquiring any overtime hours. In other cases, managers would use a practice called "the one-minute-clock-out," where workers who forget to clock in after lunch are later clocked-out by a manager at one minute after their initial clock-in time. They don't get paid for the rest of their workday. Multiply these practices with the staggering number of Wal-Mart workers and the company could be making off with millions of dollars that should go to employees.

Now accusations of these unfair labor practices have shown up in Idaho. Paul Echohawk of Echohawk Law Offices in Pocatello has filed a $7 million civil complaint against Wal-Mart in Idaho Federal District Court, demanding resolution of current and past Wal-Mart hourly employees' wages that, he says, have gone unpaid.

-- Read more --

Note: Paul Echohawk is the son of Larry Echohawk, a Native American who ran for the Idaho Governor's office in 1994.

[Yogi]

1. Wal-Mart sucks

eom

[DBoon]

2. Well in this case trial lawyers are my hero

And this is exactly why the right has targeted them.